Field of the Invention
Provided herein is a method for generating and manufacturing a surgical guide for guiding a surgical intervention on a bone, and surgical guides obtainable by said method.
Description of the Related Technology
For a number of years, the combination of virtual pre-operative planning and patient-specific surgical instruments has been available for performing complex orthopedic surgeries. This combination allows the surgeon to meticulously plan the surgery in advance on a virtual 3D model, and then execute this planning in the operating room by using patient-specific surgical instruments, which are unique to the patient and the planned surgery. The patient-specific instruments typically comprise an anatomy engagement surface which matches a part of the patient anatomy, and may guide the surgeon in performing operations such as drilling, osteotomies, and placing pins and screws.
However, for small bones or bones without pronounced features such as vertebrae, it is difficult to create patient-specific instruments providing a unique fit on the bone, wherein the fit is sufficiently stable. Although the stability of the fit may be increased by extending the support surface across a joint to an adjacent bone, this is often not a very reliable solution. Indeed, this approach requires bringing both bones of the joint to the exact same relative position that they were in when the medical images were taken on which the design of the patient-specific instrument is based. Once this relative position is obtained, the bones must further be held in this position at least until the instrument has been secured to the bone. More often than not this is very hard to accomplish in practice. Accordingly, there is a need of improved surgical guides mitigating at least part of the problems described above.